The $230,000,000 College Admission Scandal America Ignored

https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/education/magnet-schools-college-admissions-scandal-booker-t-dallas/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

By Lizzy Francis
Dec 30 2019, 10:45 AM

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In the spring of 2019, some five years after his daughter’s graduation, Stegall finally got his answer when the Advocate reporter Keri Mitchell broke a story about how elite, suburban, wealthy parents had gamed the admissions system at Booker T. Some parents had rented apartment, others had taken out water and utility bills in their name at friend’s properties. This was not dissimilar to the College Admissions Scandal that made national news thanks to a few famous names, but it was far more extreme: Discounting the value of an exceptional high school experience, math suggests that out-of-district parents conspired to loot an eight-figure sum from a community resource, pulling millions and millions out of a lower-income community for the monthly installments of the $1,200 needed to rent an empty apartment.

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Wealthy parents in Dallas — and in many other cities across the country — steal access to opportunity and to colleges from members of communities that finance great public institutions. These acts of class warfare, perpetrated by rich and nearly rich parents, rarely grab national headlines, but the monetary value of these abuses dwarfs that of a few spots bought by celebrities at a handful of elite universities.

“My bigger thought was how incredibly unfair it was to less privileged kids with talent who lived in-district, and who couldn’t get into the school,” says Stegall.

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The money issue is less nebulous and has to do with the way that school districts are funded by property taxes, a system that works well for the well-off and poorly for the poor. Magnet schools represent such a significant resource because they provide a rich-school opportunity in poor school districts. Dallas doesn’t have many great schools. Booker T. is a standout. But the people it was designed to serve aren’t in an economic position to counter raids from the suburbs, where events like PTA auctions already subsidize school spending.

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This sort of privilege hoarding has led to a few stories and maybe some social awkwardness, but zero prosecutions. The parents of the 30 students who didn’t show up to Booker T. this year have not been jailed. Their names are unknown outside the small community that abetted their actions.

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